I do not miss this part of the Air Force experience....the 2008 Program Objective Memorandum (POM, budgeting for two years in the future for the next six years and yes that job sucked) ....
I do not miss this part of the Air Force experience....the 2008 Program Objective Memorandum (POM, budgeting for two years in the future for the next six years and yes that job sucked) ....
Weird factoid: Navy civilians are not paid from the same pot USAF civilians are, at least not when I was in. I don’t remember which other pot they’re paid from, but when we had a government shut down in the mid-1990s, my air force cvilians had to stay home on furlough but my Navy civilians continued to report to work because their money was still flowing. it was part of a diiferent appropriation that wasn’t affected by the budget conflict between President Clinton and Congress.... to add civilian positions (which are also funded from O&M money).
I remember that. My boss was an old retired MSgt (AD 54-77 or something like that) and he almost tore the door off the hinges leaving the minute he could leave.Weird factoid: Navy civilians are not paid from the same pot USAF civilians are, at least not when I was in. I don’t remember which other pot they’re paid from, but when we had a government shut down in the mid-1990s, my air force cvilians had to stay home on furlough but my Navy civilians continued to report to work because their money was still flowing. it was part of a diiferent appropriation that wasn’t affected by the budget conflict between President Clinton and Congress.
But I'm thinking now of you, Doc,and you, Frank. And Dolan, and Dowdy, and Insigna and everyone else on that bucket.
All the guys everywhere who sail from Tedium to Apathy and back again, with an occasional side trip to Monotony.
This is a tough crew on here, and they have a wonderful battle record.
But I've discovered, Doc, that the unseen enemy of this war is the boredom that eventually becomes a faith and, therefore, a terrible sort of suicide.
(quote from the 1955 movie Mr. Roberts)
I'd rather be OPFOR than MOPP-4I wasn't an Infantryman my whole career, so when I went to a non-combat arms MOS, I was the natural choice to lead OPFOR when we went to the field and didn't have any external OPFOR support. I wasn't one of those types who go "all Rambo, all the time", when on OPFOR. I would discuss each mission's training objectives with the commander, and set clear rules about how I would act and react. Any firefights would play out according to the actions of both sides, and I wasn't going to just let myself or my OPFOR troops get killed in place, unless the training objective was POW and casualty processing. BUT... If I catch your unit slacking, I WILL make Rambo look like Pee Wee Herman.
For example: Probing the lines. Me and another guy with M16s sneak up to about 150 meters or so from your defensive perimeter under cover of darkness, and pop off a round or two from behind cover. After a minute or two, we move around and do it again. Maybe one time, one of us will rip off half a magazine on full auto. Our objective is to get anyone to shoot back, so we can identify where their fighting positions are. We especially want to get a crew served weapon identified. The unit's objective is to not fire back unless they have clearly identifiable targets. Sometimes, the unit fires back, and we withdraw, radio the commander, and have an AAR. Sometimes they don't fire back, and we withdraw, and again have an AAR. But one time, the unit was slacking...
We creep up to the perimeter, and start the annoyance shooting. No response, so we creep a little closer, and shoot again. No response, so we creep a bit closer, and I can see an unmanned fighting position. WTF? I check my watch, we're on time, there should be somebody on the perimeter. My OPFOR buddy and I are standing in this foxhole wondering what's going on and what to do next, when I see someone walking towards us. I pop off a few rounds, and hear the MILES beeping, and see a plate of food flying as she drops to the ground, completely surprised. We run up to her, and I grab her M16 off her and a couple mags out of her mag pouch, and I tell my buddy, "F it, go nuts, kill everyone!". I ran around dual wielding M16s and shooting everyone I see, and my buddy is apparently doing the same. It was mayhem. Nobody knew who was shooting who, and we were killing people, dropping the extra M16, and picking up a fresh one off the new kill. I'm sure there were some friendly fire kills. My buddy got popped before I did, but I eventually got popped too, but not before we killed close to half the company, most of them in and around the mess tent.
At the AAR, we found out what happened. They were having hot chow that night, and it arrived late, and someone made the decision to pull everyone off the perimeter to feed without informing the commander. No 50% security, no 25% security, it was 0% security. I stuck around for a few minutes after the AAR chatting, and when I left, they were still reading off serial numbers on their weapons trying to get them back to their rightful owners.
It reminds me of when I was an armorer in the 82nd Airborne.Sometime in 1993: Young USAF SSgt KellyinAvon was a Supply Troop stationed at K-2 Air Base in Taegu, Republic of Korea. We were a small unit (a Detachment of a Squadron, 27 Blue-Suiters on a base with 5 ROKAF fighter squadrons and the F-4 depot.)
At a War Reserve Materiel (WRM) base there were things you didn't normally see. Our Ammo troops had to have a crap-ton of lumber. They also had to have a small quantity of a VERY specific set-screw. It was used to convert a MK-82 (general purpose 500 pound bomb) into a water-mine.
The VERY specific set-screw had a National Stock Number (NSN). Problem was you couldn't order it through the USAF, since it's a water-mine and that's the Navy. I was USAF so I couldn't order stuff from the Navy because, I really don't know why.
One day, out of the blue, I get a phone call from a Navy dude in Okinawa. He was from a unit called MOMAG-10 (I don't remember what I had for breakfast, but I remember this) and if I hadn't done time on the Navy Yard in Iceland I couldn't have understood a word this guy said since it was 100% Navy jargon.
Long story short, MOMAG-10 "had the CON when it came to mines" and this dude threw a couple hundred of the VERY specific set-screws in a box and mailed them to me.
Going through official channels, they'd still be waiting for the VERY specific set-screws needed to turn MK-82s into water mines.
It's always funny to see what work arounds we had to do out of necessity to accomplish the mission.It reminds me of when I was an armorer in the 82nd Airborne.
The entire Division was critically short of M60 machine guns. A Company has 6 and a Battalion has 30 I think. It was so bad that when a Battalion was scheduled to go On DRF1 (Deployment Ready Force 1, wheels up in 18 hours) they had to borrow machine guns from other units.
The M60 dust cover consists of the cover, spring, retention rod and a tiny cotter pin. Removing the dust cover is Third level maintenance, which means the operator (1st level) the armorer (2nd level) are not allowed to remove it. Ha ha.
But just like removing the M16 buttstock is 2nd level, try to stop a hundred + infantrymen and 6 machine gunners not to do it.
So, when the machine gunners would clean their guns they would remove the dust cover and would either lose or break the tiny clutter pin.
Since the pin was third level, I could not get them. The problem was that the guys at that level had them on order and could not get any. This went on for months.
I had 3 guns at third level and I could not stand it. So I am sitting in my arms room with an M60 in front of me, just looking at it. While pondering it I picked up my stapler and was turning it over and over (antique fidget spinner) and I opened it up and and shot out a staple on the desk.
LIGHT BULB!!!
I picked up the staple, a pair of needle nose, and a small nail. I took the staple, bent it around the nail and made a clutter pin. It was the exact right size.
I made over a hundred of them and put some of them in my (illegal) parts stash and a hundred in a small baggy.
I went to 3rd level maintenance and called Sgt Alvarez the head armorer to the window. When he came over a asked if he knew what this thing was and handed him one.
His eyes lit up and asked where I had gotten it. I then threw the bag on the table and said if you pull my three guns right now he could have them. I explained how I had made them and he loved it.
I walked out with my guns and from then on I was a most favored person at third level maintenance.
PS The 82nd Airborne Division was combat ready again.